


Conversations

by darkpriestess



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 03:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4944910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkpriestess/pseuds/darkpriestess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere deep in Hannibal's memory palace, Bedelia rolls her eyes and pours herself a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversations

 

Hannibal insists on tending Will’s wounds first, ignoring his own gunshot wound, against all logic and the laws of triage.

Will glares at Hannibal. “Don’t think just because we killed the Dragon together, that now we’re going to become…”

“Murder husbands?” Hannibal offers helpfully. _Thank you, Miss Lounds._

“Murder husbands.” Will grits out.

“The thought never crossed my mind.”

 “I want my own room”

“Consider it done.”

“With a lock on the door.”

Hannibal feels his eyes narrow. “I assure you Will, if I am in your bedroom, it will be at your express invitation.” Will flushes, and Hannibal can see his dawning awareness that this conversation could have waited until Hannibal wasn’t sticking a needle into his face. He shuts up.

Hannibal finishes the last of the stitches and clips the thread. Will watches him curiously.

“Seasick, Doctor Lecter?”

Hannibal ignores that. “Will, I may need your help. With some surgery.” He gestures at the bullet wound. “ I can do most of it with a mirror, but an extra pair of hands would be helpful.”

Will brightens up immediately, Hannibal notes with amusement, even as the room starts to swim around him.

 “Sure, but what about Chiyoh? “

 “No good. She doesn’t do well with the sight of blood if she’s not the one shedding it” Hannibal takes the opportunity to sit down before his injuries put him down. Maybe tending to Will first wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Will is endearingly amused by Chiyoh’s squeamishness, unable to stop giggling even as he gathers supplies under Hannibal's careful instructions. _Delayed shock?_ Hannibal wonders, torn between the desire to slap Will back to sanity and the certain knowledge that merely attempting it will cause him to throw up instead.

Several unpleasant hours follow. The surgery goes smoothly and the internal damage is not as bad as Hannibal feared; Chiyoh is as useless as advertised and beats a hasty retreat within the first few minutes. Afterwards, Hannibal's stomach finally rebels, leaving him shaking and sweating, while Will rubs his back and makes small comforting noises. _Like I’m one of his strays._ The thought makes Hannibal smile and he wonders, looking at the concern in Will’s eyes, why he never tried to bind Will to him this way before.  He makes a mental note to ask Chiyoh to redirect her fire the next time Will inevitably tries to kill him.

“Thank you.” Hannibal says later, when Will has heaved him into bed and collapsed with exhaustion beside him.

Will shrugs. “I wouldn’t want you to die of peritonitis.”

“No? You have something more suitable in mind?”

“Maybe.” Will yawned. “Ask me again when I’m not so tired.”

Somewhere deep in Hannibal's memory palace, Bedelia rolls her eyes and pours herself a drink.

 

“Coffee?”

 Dizzy with pain and nausea, it takes Hannibal a moment to get his bearings.

  _Dragon. Cliffs. Ocean._

_Will._

 “It's not instant, is it?” he says blearily and immediately regrets it. Will smiles as widely as his injuries will allow.

“No, but I would have made you instant if I’d thought of it. That should give you an incentive to get back on your feet. Tomorrow, I promise”.

Hannibal accepts the proffered coffee and studies Will closely. All through their relationship, Will’s face when he looks at Hannibal has been a perfect study of affection and despair, but today Hannibal sees something else as well, an undercurrent of the vicious joy they shared on the clifftops.

“So, Bedelia told me something interesting.” Will spits her name rather than says it, and Hannibal’s heart sings with happiness.

“I’m sure she told you a great many interesting things. Did she happen to mention a young man in Florence-”

“She said you’re in love with me.”

 Hannibal sips his coffee. “That's not particularly interesting, Will. You knew that already .”

 Will turns his most dazzlingly vicious smile in Hannibal’s direction. “It was fun making her say it though.”

_Dear Bedelia,_ Hannibal thought fondly. _Once we’re settled I’ll have to send her a postcard._

  


Hannibal wakes in the night to the sound of Will crying, little choking gasps and sobs he’s desperately trying to suppress. Over Molly? Abigail? his dogs?

“Are you in pain?” Hannibal says to Will’s back, but he knows that's not it.

“Fuck off, Hannibal.”

Hannibal absorbs that, and tentatively reaches out a hand across the space that separates them.

“ _Don’t_ ” Will hisses.

 Hannibal doesn’t, for now.

 

 

“Idiot. Why didn’t you wake me if you needed to use the bathroom?”

“You need your rest. Your shoulder…”

“...hurts anyway. It really isn’t helped by picking you up off the floor.”

 Will maneuvers them both into the ensuite, props Hannibal up against the wall and waits.

“I can manage from here, Will”

Will snorts. “Right, so you can pass out again and hit your head on the tiles this time? I’m not going anywhere.”

If Will thinks to discomfit Hannibal, he’s missed his target. Hannibal isn’t capable of shame-an entirely unprofitable emotion. After Hannibal has been manhandled none too gently back to bed, he feels Will’s hands threading gently through his hair, soothing him back to sleep.

“ _Wake_ me next time.”

  


 

“Chiyoh won’t let me into the wheelhouse”

“Don’t take that personally. Trust doesn’t come easy to her”

“It's not safe. What if there's an emergency?”

“Like a serial killer on board?”

A pause, the space of heartbeats. “Do _you_ trust me?”

“I trust you to be who you’ve always been.”

“Do you think I’d call Jack? The police?”

“No, I don’t. Aside from the body count that would rack up, you’re too curious about what will happen next.”

 The only sound is the gentle lapping of the water against the hull and their mingled breaths.

 “So what happens next?”

 “What would you like to happen?”

 Will reaches out and traces the outline of Hannibal's mouth, caresses the curve of his jaw. Hannibal remains motionless, waiting.

 “You know I have to kill you.”

 “You already did. Our old selves died when we went off the bluffs. We’ve been reborn.” Hannibal tugs Wills hair, forces their eyes to meet. “You did your best. Let yourself off the hook.”

 “Are you speaking as my therapist?”

 “More or less. You are not responsible for my actions. Let it go, at least for tonight. ”

 Will smiles at him, fragile and heartbroken. “For tonight, then” he says and closes the distance between them.


End file.
